Vehicular braking systems have been developed to perform the indispensable tasks of slowing and stopping a vehicle when moving. With respect to automobiles, these systems include a braking pedal, and a plurality of brake pads fluidly coupled and responsive to the pedal. The pads are positioned and oriented to engage the vehicle wheels, so as to increase the rate of deceleration caused by friction. Typically, the pads are hydraulically coupled to the pedal, so that the force applied to push the pedal is transferred proportionally to each pad by the pressurized incompressible fluid. The incompressibility of the fluid, however, results in an increase in resistive force to the pedal as it is pushed, thereby requiring a steadily increasing applied force.
Audit systems have been developed in conventional factory and manufacturing settings to verify pedal force and pedal travel. These audit systems formally employed a tester, usually a human worker, who manually pushed the brake pedal of each unit or vehicle, and observed the pedal travel distance resulting from the applied force. The tester relied on his personal observation and experience to determine compliance. Conventional audit systems have incorporated load cells to quantitatively determine the applied force, and various distance sensors, such as linear displacement, accelerometer type, and inclinometer type sensors, for objectively detecting the travel distance of the brake pedal. These conventional systems, however, present concerns relating to their determination of pedal travel, in that they are attached to and rely upon the braking system support structure to operate, and more particularly, are susceptible to erroneous distance and compliance determinations caused by deflections in the structure.
Thus, there is a need in the manufacturing arts for an improved system for and method of auditing a braking system that utilizes objective means for determining pedal travel, and that is not susceptible to erroneous compliance conclusions caused by internal deflections.